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Even the Tooth Fairy Has Regrets

By Kj Dell’Antonia October 14, 2014 4:42 pmOctober 14, 2014 4:42 pm

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Credit KJ Dell'Antonia

My Columbus Day weekend was error-filled. I tried to shop at closed markets. I scheduled things in the middle of other things, I promised still more things that I didn’t allow time for. I forgot an arriving play date and left the house entirely, with all children in tow. I thought children would entertain themselves at moments when that really wasn’t a practical expectation. I made lists of things to do that were entirely unrealistic, that I didn’t want to do over a long weekend, that I don’t really want to do in the first place.

Even the Tooth Fairy forgot to come.

And now, as what was, for my children, a four-day weekend tails off, and the two older children face undone homework, and the younger ones strive to contain their natural urge to kill each other off out of sheer competitiveness, I’m trying to moderate exactly how much I kick myself for wasted time, missed opportunities and a general sense of life ill-spent. (It was perhaps not the best weekend to start Atul Gawande’s “Being Mortal,” either.) Because my kicking myself will make me grumpy and impatient for what remains of the day, and unable to absorb the child frustrated by the need to square 1.7 before multiplying it by 7.6 and subtracting the result from 23.98, or appreciate the one who settles in to the work with good grace, although he’s wishing he had done it last Friday, as he intended — let alone deal with the pitched battle I hear going on downstairs.

It really wasn’t a bad fall weekend, I remind myself. Apples were picked. Cookies were baked. Hills were hiked and views surveyed. The Tooth Fairy sent a nice note.

But it was a fall weekend, among the last of the fall weekends, and the snow is coming and my children are growing and I can feel the school year gathering steam, rushing my oldest toward high school, and the others up and onward toward another year. That’s the lyrical reason for my vague discontent. The real reason probably lies more in the to-do list I put off all weekend: battling the website for the third time to register children for the after-school program, registering another child for a science fair on a website I haven’t tried yet, but have already been warned about, making multiple doctor’s appointments, and so on and so forth for another page or so.

These are, as I’m sure to be reminded, good problems to have. Scarcely problems at all (although given the noises from what is now an energetic game downstairs rather than a dispute, we may have a real problem before the day is done). All true. What I’m feeling is just the mild regret that comes from that sense that you could always have done more, felt more, appreciated more, been more. It’s an autumn feeling.

Fortunately, nothing says oh, put a sock in it like a pumpkin-shaped bucket of candy. Clearly I’m ready for Halloween. You?

About

We're all living the family dynamic, as parents, as children, as siblings, uncles and aunts. At Motherlode, lead writer and editor KJ Dell’Antonia invites contributors and commenters to explore how our families affect our lives, and how the news affects our families—and all families. Join us to talk about education, child care, mealtime, sports, technology, the work-family balance and much more